Theatre review: 4.48 Psychosis
Article published: Friday, May 1st 2009
Performed as part of UMSU Drama Festival 2009
Theatre review: 4.48 Psychosis
Performed as part of UMSU Drama Festival, February 2009
by Michael Pooler
Mule rating: ****
Written shortly before she took her own life in 1999, Sarahs Kanes 4.48 Psychosis
reads like an extended suicide note. Uncompromisingly bleak, it was
written in the form of a stream of consciousness contained in a single
lyric with no stage directions or even a set number of characters and
explicitly evokes themes of depression, self-destruction, insomnia,
despair, substance abuse and suicide.
From such an introduction you might
expect the performance of such a work to be a daunting, even grueling
task for both actors and audience. Yet this production, comprised of a
single scene of over an hours duration, manages to maintain vitality
without falling into the trap of over-indulgence or tedium.
The set is a bleached white room,
placing the audience squarely in the prison of the mind, and five
actresses are used as the fractured and jarring projections of the
characters thoughts. Each one represents a different vulnerability and
character defect; through their manic and discordant interaction
unwinds a tense and unnerving drama that grates like the turning of a
broken record.
Incisive in tone, the script
presents the tormented inner monologue of the character through a
series of repetitious exchanges and arguments in a cyclical fashion.
The actresses talk over one another
and at cross purposes as the mind tussles and toils in an unremitting
battle against itself. Flitting maniacally between religion and
substance in search of solace, the tension builds; the voices accuse
one another ravenously; and then, in a disarming twist they offer each
other a desperate comfort. The character is thus hideously consumed
and yet also sustained by herself, in a paradoxical cycle conveyed by
the harrowing rhythm of the dialogue.
In a magnificent display of
language, the dialogue then degenerates during one sequence into a
series of repeated infantile noises. Both absurdly comedic and
disturbing, it portrays the grave state of mental disintegration as
well as echolalia, a symptom of schizophrenia in which sufferers parrot
the speech of others.
The play reaches its climax in a
flurry of manic action before ending with an inevitably grisly
denouement. And most chilling of all in this perversely logical
conclusion is the sense of relief and tranquility that is felt,
momentarily, by the troubled soul before departure.
Despite being an abstract piece of work, 4.48 Psychosis
attempts to drag the audience into the inner mental workings of the
writer. The effect may be either to repel or reel in the viewer; either
way, its unflinching account of the human condition cannot be ignored.
Overall this is an excellent yet deeply distressing performance which
leaves a profound impression.
